Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest in New York City Highlights the Effects of Climate Change

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest Exhibit in Madison Square Park: Taken by me in June 2021 

As a result of both climate change and deforestation, native species from the United States and across the world are endangered and on the brink of extinction. Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest is focused on this concept of loss in the global ecosystem, drawing direct inspiration from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The exhibit features forty-nine Atlantic cedar trees, each barren of leaves and about forty feet tall. Yesterday, when I visited this exhibit, the stark contrast between these trees, the park’s vibrant grasses, and the surrounding urban landscape was jarring. An effective sign to spread awareness, Lin’s art made me imagine if the other trees in the park were reduced to the same shell of their former being and showed me images of a lifeless dystopia that climate change has the potential to create. 

When we think of ghosts, Halloween decorations and kids wearing bedsheets with cut-out eyeholes for trick-or-treating may come to mind; however, much folklore pictures ghosts as transparent beings, remnants of living souls after death. A ghost forest describes a barren woodland that once flourished; in other words, a frail remnant of a once beautiful forest. Ghost forests form in coastal regions affected by rising sea levels or the shifting of tectonic plates, where trees that thrive under freshwater exposure are flooded with seawater. Thus, high levels of salinity effectively poison these trees, and “ghostly gray trunks that resemble toothpicks” are all that remain (Smithsonian). Researchers from Rutgers University and the United States Department of Agriculture have shown that many forests on the Atlantic coastline from Massachusetts to Virginia are now becoming ‘ghost forests’. 

Ghost forests are eerie evidence of rising seas. Source: Grist.org 

Apart from the loss of trees, ghost forests are also characterized by uninhabitable soil for plant growth, which prevents the survival of rare plants and animals in these locations. Lin’s Ghost Forest exhibition shows this change by providing a soundscape of New York native species that are now endangered. Expansion of ghost forests also contributes to a harmful feedback loop that continues the spread. Evergreen trees and nutrient-rich soils in healthy coastal forests lower carbon dioxide concentrations by absorbing CO2 year-round, so the increasing abundance of ghost forests releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or into carbon pools. 

As ecological evidence strongly suggests, we must alleviate the growth of ghost forests to protect coastal ecosystems and help slow climate change overall. To protect existing shoreline forests, additional trees can be planted to prevent erosive destruction and sediments can be deposited to help to raise land elevation away from sea level. Additionally, planting species with greater resistance to changes in salinity is a preliminary step to rejuvenating damaged coasts. Finally, exhibitions such as Maya Lin’s can help raise awareness about climate change, and lead corporations and governments to bring attention to the issue. Throughout the run of this exhibition in Madison Square Park from May to November, 1,000 trees are also being planted with help of the Natural Areas Conservancy. 

Another angle of Ghost Forest: Taken by me in June 2021